Managment Vision Motivation

I am not really good at writing,
or even putting words together.
But I can only say that managment class was fun,
It made us all work hard search and run.
I know that I am gonna miss it for sure,
because it made us all be active
and also tough us how to be effective.
It made me think of a mission,
that I can only reach if I have e vision.
It made me have a motivation
that I can only reach with creation.
I am gonna miss every moment of this class,
which I hope we all pas.
I am gonna miss all of my new friends
which made me laugh,
and which sometimes got on my nerves.
This class taught me how to be creative,
but must of all how to be motivated.
Now a message to all of my friends:
Believe in yourself and you will always have success
Remember to always have e vision
that will make you win every competition.

COMMUNICATION...BLOG GREAT TOOL

I have never seen such a  great idea applied in any of my classes before. Blog assignments were interesting. They were based on free writings and free thinking. It was a class after class. It was great because everyone could give their own opinions on assignments and discussions that went on in class. We all know that Baruch classes are crowed so therefore not everyone gets a chance to speak and express their opinion. The Blog gave us all the opportunity to communicate and participate after class. It was a great assignment considering the fact that everyone could comment on it even people that are not in our class. It was a great form of communication. I want to thank you all the class mates and the Professor for giving me and all the students to communicate together online. It was a great tool that helped us to know each other better. We created an idea about each other. We even learned about each others type of personalities. It helped me in a lot of ways to think about every activity we did in class and relate it to the topics that we studied. It was a great experience. It was a great opportunity to speak out our opinions and manage 20% of our grades. Free thinking ,free ideas, free communication, that's the way to go. I want to thank you all the classmates who commented on my blogs. It was nice meeting all of you and even though we might have not gotten a chance to communicate personally the blog gave us this opportunity. Thank you Prof.Kurpis for introducing me with this new concept. I didn't know that blogs existed. I will continue to blog and I will continue to extend my network. Thank you everyone.

A Special Day at McDonald's

I am not a big fan of McDonald’s food.  Even though there are a few McDonald’s around my neighborhood in Ridgewood Queens I had to make a little research before I went. First I decided to pick a place that is not usually very busy. I wanted the employees to take my order very seriously and complete all my special side orders. I also decided to take a friend with me who could enjoy the special McDonald’s meal with me.

 As soon as I walked in I realized that the store was full of people and little kids.  I then realized that I have no choice but wait on line and place my special order. While I was waiting online I realized one thing there was only one  cashier handling the  line and from what I noticed she was new and not very familiar with the menu.  At that point I realized that my order would have been complicated for her and that managers need to be involved. But I did not ask for a manager.  I acted normally and told her my order I also asked her specifically that I needed a receipt specifying all the details of my order. The girl looked at me and did not react at all. She didn’t say we can’t do it. She was just looking at the register trying to figure out ways to describe my order on a piece of receipt.

  While the girl was trying to figure it out, the line behind me kept getting bigger and bigger.  I had people looking at me weird for holding the line for no reason. A lady behind me who had enough of waiting on line screamed out loud: “Girl stop being difficult and take your order.” I preferred to ignore her for a minute, and was still waiting for my receipt and my special order to come out.  As the line kept getting bigger and bigger the manager had to walk in and ask about the situation. The new cashier then explained to her my complicated order.

 I acted very serious and made it clear that I would not walk out of the store if my order was not completed.  The manager trying to calm down the situation and reduce the line behind me gave me a smile and said: “Of course Miss we can help you”.  She asked me to step down to the next register as she would take personal care of me.  I was then moved to an empty register and started explaining my order again.

 The manager specifically explained to me that they weren’t able to put 5 pickles on the receipt but just extra pickles. She insisted that in order for me to have a receipt which would say five extra pickles I had to make 5 orders.  She also explained to me that they cannot specifically put the extra Mac sauce on the receipt but just one sauce.

  My friend takes the order and I take the receipt.  I wasn’t happy. My five pickles were not showing on the receipt.  I told the manager: I wasn’t going to step out the store without my complete receipt.  She than kept insisting and insisting that the only thing she could do is hand write on the receipt 5 pickles and initial them.  I agreed to that but I also wanted her business card stapled to my receipt.  She did not have a business card. She specifically explained to me that the top of the receipt with the address and the telephone number serves as a business card for all the mangers of that location. She was very sorry that she couldn’t satisfy me with that. She was very nice and polite. She was the general manager of the store and she was the one personally involved with me

 Now after taking my attention away from the receipt I made sure my order was ok.  I opened the burger and the five pickles were there. My fries were well done too.  And then I see a little soda cup with the extra Mac sauce.  I wasn’t happy with that. I asked for extra sauce but that didn’t mean they had to put in on a soda cup. I then politely asked the manager to put my extra Mac Sauce on a regular sauce container.   I knew at that moment the manager had enough of my order.  She got a little irritated and showed me a very small container.  I then walked down the store and preferred to take my extra sauce on my little soda cup. This was my experience at McDonald’s.

 If I would have to rate the management process, Would Igive them the maximum? The answer is no.  As far as organization goes they were not well organized.  They were not set up to handle extra orders. There was only one register open with a new girl which was handling the entire store. The moment she was encounter with a difficulty she didn’t even asked for help.  If I was the manager of the store I would always had a cashier for back up to take special orders. And not have the manager of the store get involved with the long lines and special orders. McDonald’s are always busy, back up is always important. It was a small store but not well organized.

As far as communication I think that it wasn’t effective. There was no commination between the employees and the manager.  The manager would take over the situation without asking what is going on.  She did underestimate the cashier and did not ask her if she wanted help or try to explain to her how to solve the situation. There was no communication. She wasn’t a very effective manger,  she was the type of manger that would do the work herself not assigning  other people to do it. In this case there was lack of communication between employees.  The communication between the employees and the customers was then very effective.  I think that me and the manager had a very effective communication. She explained with details the whole process and answered all my questions.

As far as the training process I don’t think the employees were well trained. The cashier was just hired. She had problems using the register effectually. She wasn’t very familiar with the menu and the special orders that come on the side. After the manager was done with my order no one explained to the new girl how to use the register in these special cases.   I think the training process for the new employees at McDonald’s consisted of very basic things that are most commonly used.

As far as the leadership, the fact that the manger was the one who handled my special order and was with my throughout the process made me realize that she did have a lot of good managerial skills but not leadership skills. A leader leads and others follow.  She wasn’t leading she was involved in the process.  I still believe she was a good manager even though she was the type of manger that would rather do things herself than assignothers that will not do the jobcompletely. I believe she was a very good manger.  I think she should get her employees a little  more involved ,in that case their job doesn’t get boring. I think McDonald’s is the place that doesn’t need leaders but good mangers. McDonald’s stores do not encounter a lot of challenging situations every day. They don’t have to make important decisions or follow business plan. All is needed is good employees and good managers. No leaders need to be involved. 

Overall the service was good.  My order was made according to my desires. The staff was calm and tried to help me with my special order. I didn’t get any attitude from any of the employees or the manger.   They all tried to follow my instructions and give me the best service.  Looking at things on the big picture everything was good.  Looking at things from a manager prospective some things need to be improved. I had a very pleasant day and my friend really enjoyed the McDonald’s meal. It was a fun experiment that made me realize a lot of things about the management process.

Personal Profile...What type are you?

It was one of the greatest activities of the class. I really enjoyed the personality test activity. For some questions I really had to thing hard and identify where I fitted in more. At first I thought the test would not give me accurate results. But surprisingly enough the result that I got fitted my personality more. I was a C personality. And I was more than happy with my result because it fitted me the best. I wouldn't have liked to be a D or I personality. First I am not a dominate person, secondly I am not the type of person that like to solve problems by influencing or persuading others. My only believe as a C personality is to work conscientiously to reach the best quality and accuracy. Like the C personality describes I like to to  be diplomatic with people  and think very analytically. The only think that was controversy with my personality was the teamwork description. Type C personalities encourage teamwork, while I prefer more to work individually. One other thing that I have to agree with my personality description is to develop more tolerance for conflict. I like to perform well and give maximum in what I do. Quality is what I look on in every aspect of the life. To all the D and the I personalities I value your dominance and influence characteristic. I think I have to work more on being a little more on being dominant instead of sitting on a cubical trying to do my best. Great experiment!!

The Power to Vision

There is one thing that I am sure about: We can never accomplish things in life without a vision. And is the power of vision that makes us work harder on reaching our every day goals and expetations. It's applying our visionary skills that makes a big difference in our life. We have a vision which we turn it into a goal and than we apply it. My first business is to open several businesses in my home country albania. I want to open a lot of clothing stores which will mostly operate by online services. Shopping online is not a common thing in Albania. I want to introduce the new concept of online shopping. I want customers to understand the convience of online shopping and start using it more and more. My second business vision is to work for the United Nations in the Economic Development Department. One of my biggest dreams has always been to work for an international organization. It would be an honor to work and contribute in the economemic development of the entire world.My third vision is to become a partner in a big accounting firm/

Decision Making

Making a decision wasn't as easy as it seemed like. Decision making process took a lot of arguments and a lot of debates.Our class had to make a final decision on the exam grade and the format of the other exam. The students had different ideas. Some of them were screaming out their ideas, some of them decided to stay on the back of the class and stay quite, some others would chose to talk a few times. The most dififcult part consisted on the fact that we did not specifically assigned a leader, even though a few students self chosen decided to play a leader role. The leader power was very low comparing to the group power which was very high. The role of the self chosen leaders were mostly to provide resources and encouragment but the final decision was based on the group as a whole. In this case of decision making  I believe that the group support should be really strong. I think our support on the decision was very strong , besides a few students which did not understood our final decision and chose not to agree with it. I think at the point the self chosen leaders of the class played an important role explaining the final decision more clearly to the students who had a few confusions. The conflict reached its peak at the moment that we all had to vote on the final decision.Considering the fact that our final decision would not effect all of us the same I chose to compromise. I tried to work as a mediator among the extreme opinions and chose the one that would somehow benefit us all in the future. I chose to compromise talking in consideration the fact that in class we are all equal besides the grades that we got. Even the students with the lowest grades and the ones with the highest grades needed to be treated equally. Even though  I believed that the decision that we made would not benefit me the best I supported it. I sow the problem from a bigger prospective which was to help the entire class. If I wouldn't taken in consideration other classmates I would have been more aggressive about the decision and play more "Compete  to win" I would have insisted more on a different decision that would personally benefit me more and I wouldn't have voted for the final decision. I mostly took in consideration that this is a group decision and not a personal one where every body's power is the same. In this cases compromising is the best choice. I chose to compromise and in that kind of situation I wouldn't have behaved differently. COMPROMISING is the best behavior in a group decision situation. I think we made a very good decision and every one accepted it. No one personalized the situation. We acted mature and reasonable with each other. I was happy with the decision and with everyone's behavior.

The Unbreakable Egg

The experiment was very intersting. The team members were also very passion on giving ideas and generating them. As soon as we were got the first basic instructions we started to think of our plan without reading and following instruction. We focused more on the goal of creating an unbreakable egg and somehow ignored the instructions that were given. We created the best plan for our egg not to break. We disscused it and as soon as we good the materials we stareted to impement the plan. At some point we forgot to even draw the picture of our plan and time was becoming our concern. Our main goal was to get to the front of the class as soon as possible. Focusing more on time and on plan implementation we forgot to write our names on our paper plan. We had a name for the egg, we had a plan structure but we didn't write our names. We ge at the front of the class we preform and we reach our goal. Our egg did not break. But we failed. We failed because we reached the main goal but we skiped other thinkgs. We failed to follow directions.